How to add more zip to the regulatory process

The process for creating new acquisition regulations is scheduled for a tune-up.

That's a tune-up, not an overhaul. As strange as it might seem to outsiders, the bureaucratic regulatory approval process — in which proposals go from committee to committee, office to office and back again for more reviews — has its virtues. The deliberate steps keep outlandish rules out of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR), and they save government and industry from mass confusion caused by puzzling language.

Even so, federal executives say the process can be fine-tuned by recalibrating its engine. They say there’s got to be a tweak at the front end or somewhere in the middle to reduce the idling time.

“My No. 1 goal is finding ways to squeeze out those steps in the processes that are slowing things up, where cases are sitting for no reason,” Dan Gordon, administrator of the Office of Federal Procurement Policy, told officials at the General Services Administration during one of GSA's so-called slam events Feb. 9.

Locked in a room for an entire day, senior procurement officials and policy experts from all over the government picked apart the current process and looked for new approaches. They suggested ideas and rated them. Some ideas were eliminated immediately, although the rules of the day outlawed laughing. Other ideas made people think.

The primary purpose was to eliminate any kinks in the bureaucracy of internal reviews and re-reviews of proposals.

Kathleen Turco, associate administrator of governmentwide policy at GSA,
said she believes the process can be fine-tuned. “In the government, we spend a
lot of time thinking and contemplating,” she said. She would like to see
more action.

And action is just what the process needs.

One idea that has been floated is combining the Defense Acquisition
Regulatory Council and Civilian Agency Acquisition Council.

There have long been questions about the need for two councils, said
Robert Burton, former deputy administrator of OFPP and now a partner at
Venable law firm. The councils generally go through the same process of
examining proposed rules, so combining their subcommittees might save
time. However, merging the two councils is politically impossible
because no one would want to relinquish their authority, Burton said.

Ways to pick up the slack

Other ideas for improvement target the FAR secretariat's office, which
is responsible for publishing proposed, interim and final rules. The
office could shorten the process by issuing the different iterations
more quickly.

“It was a bit disturbing how long some cases had been in the queue,”
Burton said. Sometimes the rules sit for months while the office
prepares to publish the Federal Acquisition Circular.

Likewise, the FAR signatories — officials from the Defense Department, GSA and NASA who
must sign off on all final rules — could meet regularly for discussions
and offer guidance for policy writers.

A former GSA signatory, who held the authority for a decade, said it
might be a burden for busy executives, but it's needed. “At the end of
the day, without senior executive input and supervision, it’s kind of
hard to speed up the time it takes to go through the process,” the
former signatory said.

Tom Davis, former Republican congressman from Northern Virginia and now director
of federal government affairs at Deloitte and Touche, said government
officials should issue proposals to the public in a more timely manner
and respond more quickly to the comments they receive.